


to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten

by Maple_Fay



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:19:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1464028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maple_Fay/pseuds/Maple_Fay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My sister,” he says, feeling the words squeezed forcefully between his teeth, “she spoke to you at the wedding. What did she say?”<br/>“Nothing that wasn’t the truth.”</p><p>Post-4x02, more or less book compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my very first venture into the GoT fandom - forgive me for spamming the Jaime x Brienne tag, where there are so many amazing writers already, but I simply had to put my post-4x02 feelings into words.
> 
> This work is seriously heavy on 4x02 episode spoilers, and more or less book compliant.  
> I own as much as Jon Snow knows. (Man, was this a bad pun.)  
> Feedback is lovely, and makes me a better writer. Thank you for reading!  
> (The title is from 'Scarborough Fair', Simon&Garfunkel version.)

In the complete and utter chaos, between Cersei weeping uncontrollably, Margeary sitting still like a marble statue, Joffrey being dead (his _son_ ; the thought has not fully registered yet but it’s there, and it’s coming for him) and everybody and their cousin demanding Tyrion’s head be served on a golden platter, he needs a calm centre, a peace in the storm—something nobody is willing to give him.

So he ventures out to seek it himself, seeing that they pay him no attention: truly, a handless knight with a conflict of interests (his brother, his _son_ ) was nobody’s first choice for… well, anything, to be quite frank. He slips away from Joffrey’s chambers and wanders the hallways aimlessly, guards, servants and unfortunate wedding guests parting before him readily. He wishes they didn’t do that—a distraction would be quite welcome and this time of turmoil. His head seems to swell with words unspoken, ideas and thoughts pressing against each other, rubbing like animals in heat: he needs to just _talk to someone_ , let some of it out into the open lest he explodes.

He goes to the one person he knows _will_ listen to him.

The impropriety of such a visit being paid in the small hours of the day doesn’t strike him until he arrives at her door—but before he’s had time to ponder on the implications should any of them be found in the other’s company (in private, before dawn), his golden hand, clearly not a part of himself, pushes against the dark, thick wood. The door swings inward, having apparently stood ajar till this moment: a troubling omen, making his pulse quicken in worry and surprise. He hasn’t seen Brienne for hours, not since he’d caught sight of Cersei speaking to her: what says she’s even _here_ , what says she hasn’t just… _gone_?

But she hasn’t. He breathes easier, seeing her standing by the foot of her bed, every available flat surface covered with items of clothing, weaponry and armour, as if a gale swept through the room mere moments before. Brienne looks up at him, her brow furrowed as she searches his face. “Ser Jaime. Why are you here?”

He wishes to all gods old and new he knew the answer. “I shouldn’t be here,” he speaks quietly, coming to certain realizations far too late to make the correct choice. “I shall leave you be.”

“Stay,” she answers hurriedly and lowers her eyes, unreadable as they are in the low light an oil lamp illuminating the room. “You must have had your reasons to leave… there.”

“Everybody thinks Tyrion did it,” he blurts out, stepping into the room and leaning against the door, the metal of his hand scraping the wood. “They’re more than convinced they’d already found the killer.”

“But you are not,” she observes, folding her arms across her chest and she watches him thoughtfully. “Why not? Do not you believe he had a reason to?”

He thinks about Sansa Stark’s face as she watched the joust. Of the book being slashed right through, of wine being poured out over hair and clothing. “He surely did. But I cannot see him doing this.” _Not at that moment. Not that way._

“Because he’s a Lannister?”

“Because he’s _Tyrion_ ,” he snaps back, shaking his head in defeat. “Forgive me. I cannot explain it. I simply feel it, deep inside me,” he brushes his good hand against the unsteady beat of his heart, “this overwhelming certainty—he didn’t do it.”

She nods slowly, keeping her eyes fixed upon him. “I cannot reassure you, seeing that I know him not. But if your heart tells you this strongly that something is or isn’t true, then it must in fact be so.”

Some new, unheard-of-before quality in her voice makes him lay the question of Tyrion’s blame aside and look at her more sharply, more inquiringly. “What’s the matter?” he asks, taking a step in her direction. “You are troubled.”

She shakes her head, shadows dancing on her face. “It’s nothing. You shouldn’t concern yourself.”

Oh yes he _should_ , he wants to tell her; because seeing her distressed and worrying over some yet unnamed thing adds to the burden on his shoulders; because she is the beacon of hope, honour and truth in the night his family life has become of late and he cannot bear to see it dim; because the way her voice shakes makes him want to seek out the person who upset her and reprimand them—the one thing he _can_ do about everything that happened this past day.

He goes through all the times he’s seen her recently, looking for a plausible culprit, and arrives to a conclusion within a few heartbeats. “My sister,” he says, feeling the words squeezed forcefully between his teeth, “she spoke to you at the wedding. What did she say?”

If it weren’t for the flickering flame casting shadows on Brienne’s face, he could have sworn she blushed. “Nothing that wasn’t the truth,” she replies curtly and he can all but _smell_ the omission on her breath. She must know he knows, for she rushes to add, “I have no quarrel with her grace, I assure you.”

“ _You_ may not have a quarrel with _her_ ,” he quips, “but the opposite remains uncertain. What did she say, Brienne?” he presses on, rather insistently. If Cersei did anything to cause Brienne unrest, he’d…

A sudden chill runs up his spine as he looks around, noticing the surrounding chaos as if for the first time. “What is the meaning of this? You weren’t thinking of—“ _leaving_ hangs suspended in the air between them and Jaime feels the weight on the unspoken word crash down onto his chest like a battle hammer. “Were you?” he finishes helplessly, angry with himself for the way the words come out, and furious with Cersei for whatever it was she’s done: he’s more than sure of her involvement now.

“It doesn’t matter,” Brienne whispers gently, folding a piece of cloth she’s holding—has been holding all this time. “If you had stayed with your family, I’d have been gone before you even noticed: the way it should be, should _have_ been—“

“What did she say?” he repeats and, finding himself nearer to her than he was aware of, stills her cloth-wrapped hands with his own, feeling the heat emanating from Brienne and flowing into him through the thin fabric. “I need to know. If you truly mean to… leave… I deserve to know why, don’t you agree? It’s the honourable thing to do,” he supplies as if in afterthought, knowing very well it’s a strike well below the belt; he’s desperate to hear the answer from her lips, _not_ Cersei’s (as if she’d speak to him at all in her current state).

Brienne still hesitates, so Jaime tightens his fingers over hers, speaking solemnly as he tries to look her in the eye in the dark, “I promise that everything you say will remain in my strictest confidence: but you _must_ tell me. I—“

“Very well,” she stops him short from uttering a word they’d both regret, and breathes in slowly, trying to compose herself. “Give me your word you’ll keep it to yourself and I—I will tell you.”

He nods, squeezing her fingers one more time, hoping to convey everything he doesn’t have a word for—yet. “You have it, upon my other hand, if you will.”

She tries to pull her hands away, but Jamie’s grip is tight, secure: whatever ugly truth he is about to hear, he will have her tell it to his face, no hiding, no sparing his feelings. “Your sister, the queen, wished to know how I cope with my interesting life: changing alliances from one master to another—following first Lord Renly, then Lady Catelyn, and now, yourself.”

“What truth is in there?” he insists, his head burning with rage, his mouth desert dry. “Seven hells, Brienne! I call you wench, but you’re not—you do not serve me. How could Cersei be right when she’d said—“

“Her grace did not imply that I served you, ser Jaime,” Brienne’s voice is low and distant, and yet he thinks he can feel it resonating throughout his body, tugging at the painfully tight strings of his nerves, tangled in uncertainty. “She believed I may have had another reason for following you.”

“Another… reason?” he repeats dumbly, not daring to think and yet thinking all the same…

“Do not make me say it,” Brienne pleads with him, turning her face away and oh how he yearns for two good hands, so to keep his hold of her hands and still be able to touch her chin gently, turn her head back towards him.

When she continues to speak, it catches him completely off guard. “There was no lie in your sister’s words. I couldn’t deny anything she said. I also dare not act upon any of it.”

“I wish you would,” he tells her softly, steadying her fingers as she startles and stiffens, ready to bolt, like a doe with hounds on its track. “I wish you’d had come to me, instead of retreating here to... pack.” The word is grim and heavy, but they both know it’s true, no point in denying it. “Where would you go?”

The question, further away from the topic of Cersei’s questions, puts Brienne a little more at ease. “There’s a rumour that Sansa Stark has fled the city directly after the wedding,” she explains matter-of-factly, not removing her hands from Jaime’s grasp. “If that is true, I need to follow her, before—“

“Before my sister sends someone after her,” he finishes, nodding solemnly. Thoughts fight for supremacy in his mind. _Don’t leave yet. Don’t leave at all. If you have to, take me with you. I lost myself on the way from Robb Stark’s camp, and you’re the only one who can find me._ He can see she’s growing impatient, yearning to leave as soon as possible, but he cannot have her do so, not just _yet_. “If you wait an hour longer, there’s something I would have you take on your journey—do not deny me this favour, stubborn as you are, _wench_.” The last word is spoken without malice, but with meaning they both grasp, a touch of familiarity on the quicksand of current events. “Take what I give you—in my stead.”

“You would go with me?” she asks, incredulous, and turns back to look at him in the waxing daylight.

Jaime does something extremely irrational then, something stupid and bold and possibly _wrong_ : he pulls at Brienne hands, restrained as they are, and, once she comes within his reach, brushes his lips against hers for the briefest of moments.

He’s not sure what he’s been expecting. A slap across the face, for one. Perhaps a kick to help him out of the room, with a bruise to remember her by.

Certainly not another gentle pull, this time on her part, followed by a second ghost of a kiss: hesitant and unsure and mayhap the truest anyone has ever given him in his entire life.

There’s a great part in him that wishes to take advantage of his newly found knowledge, to push for another kiss, another touch, something—anything to last him until he’s free to follow her: for follow her he will, that much is known. That part, however, yields to another: one that speaks of honour and oathkeeping and things that need to be cherished to bloom. So he pulls away after a moment (blink of an eye, piece of eternity), and bows his head respectfully, finally releasing her hands.

“I would,” he answers her previous question, and though they both know he won’t, they also understand the reason behind it: and the fact that, someday, it may yet become moot.

“Then hurry up, _Kingslayer_ ,” she speaks into his ear, and there is promise in the words, whichever way he chooses to interpret them.

It doesn’t make it any easier to return to his family, hours later, and to know she’s leaving town, carrying his sword and a piece of himself along.

Perhaps it is therefore good that nothing has yet to be easy between the two of them.

There’s always room for improvement.

**/end**


End file.
